The War of the Petal: The Bridge
by GrumpyBear109
Summary: War has come to Remnant, a war manipulated into existence by the shadowy Cinder Fall. This excerpt tells the story of team JNPR and their attempts to assist the Central Alliance in seizing a town from a ruthless enemy huntsman. Can they succeed? Can they rely on their team work and determination to win the day? Or will the enemy simply not care, and cast them aside regardless?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Calm**

 _Jaune Arc  
_ _10:00am,  
_ _Alliance Trenches,  
_ _The Divide_

War, is an ugly, messy thing. And unfortunately for Jaune, he was currently up to his ears in the stuff. In fact the entire world was up to its respective ears in war, courtesy of some shadowy behind the scenes group manipulating the four kingdoms of the world.

As it currently stood, it was Atlas and Vale against Mistral and Vacuo, battling it out across the continent of Vytal, Jaune's homeland. And it wasn't going well, at least, not for Jaune and team JNPR anyway.

Vale and Atlas were situated right in the middle of Vacuo and Mistral, cutting the two kingdoms off from one another, and whilst this meant that they couldn't unify their armies, it also meant that The Central Alliance (the name for Atlas and Vale's partnership) was having to fight a war on two opposing fronts.

Soon after the war had kicked off many Huntsman and Huntresses had been drafted to help combat the hordes of Grimm attracted by the war, and of course to help slay the enemy for the good of the kingdom and so on. All Jaune really cared about at the moment though was getting his teammates, and as many other fellow soldiers as he could, out of their next battle alive.

Said next battle was the capture of a large town which had previously belonged to Vale but which was currently under Mistral control.

The town itself was actually quite important, situated on the southern shore of Vytal's northern most island it acted is a bridge between Atlas and Vale, and if Mistral managed to hold onto it they would be able to drive a wedge between Atlas and Vale and turn the tide of the war. As a result the island had been dubbed: "The Divide".

From his position in the trenches, located a few hundred metres away from the town, Jaune could easily make out the first row of buildings. He could also make out what was going to be their biggest problem in taking the town. The fact that he and the rest of the soldiers would have to charge across a nice, long, unprotected and narrow bridge to get to the town.

No airships for them, no the airships were all tied up on the eastern and western fronts, suppressing the enemy armies and preventing them from sending reinforcements to secure their foothold on Vytal. Which was actually pretty smart but it still pissed Jaune off.

He sighed in frustration and ducked back into the trenches, feeling a little bit too vulnerable with his head poking above them, especially with the Mistral huntsman hanging around.

" _That guy..._ " Jaune thought, narrowing his eyes and casting his mind back to a previous battle.

The Mistral huntsman was called Glacial Frost, and he was the most terrifying man Jaune had ever fought. A true killer with no regard for human life, or even his own so it seemed.

" _A true soldier._ " Jaune thought, before shuddering and shaking his head to clear his mind as he emerged into a large clearing full of breakfasting soldiers.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha called, the early morning sun glancing off of her golden head piece and setting her red hair ablaze.

Jaune stared for a moment, transfixed by her before snapping out of it and waving in return. It was happening more and more nowadays, and he found himself wondering whether or not it was the war that was making him feel that way, or something else entirely.

"Good morning fearless leader!" Nora sung, cutting up pancakes whose origins Jaune still failed to understand "Did you come up with some crazy awesome plan again?!"

"Eh kind of," Jaune replied, sitting down next to Ren and across from Pyrrha "the main problem is getting across that bridge, but after that it should be pretty simple."

"Don't forget about Glacial." Pyrrha warned, her green eyes dark with anger as she rubbed her wrists.

Jaune cast a glance downwards and saw that her golden bracers still bore the deep, long gashes in them from an earlier encounter with Glacial. If she hadn't been wearing them he would have slit her wrists and left her to die. It wasn't something Jaune liked to think about.

"Don't worry," he said, giving her hand a friendly squeeze "I haven't forgotten him."

He let go of her hand, suddenly thinking it might be more friendly then he thought, and subsequently blushed.

"The uh, problem with that um, is that," he stammered as Ren grinned knowingly and Nora giggled "is that we don't know where he is or what his plan is. We'll just have to adapt on the fly."

Pyrrha gave Jaune a worried look but before she could voice any of her thoughts Cyrus Lapel came striding up to them.

A tall man in his early thirties, with a kind face, grey eyes and brown hair, Cyrus was the commander of this particular division of The Central Alliance. He was wearing the standard captain's outfit, a silver-white set of slim, sleek armour with the captain's insignia on his left shoulder. Slung over his back was a large, equally sleek looking machine gun.

Jaune smiled at his commander and snapped a salute, as did the rest of team JNPR, he knew the captain thought little of such formalities, most frontline soldiers did, but he respected the man too much to let it go.

"At ease guys, at ease." Cyrus chuckled, his hands clasped behind his back out of habit "Just came by to hand out your orders."

"Are we attacking soon?" Ren asked, straight to the point as usual.

"Indeed we are son, no need to be so eager though, what we're about to do ain't gonna be fun." Cyrus replied, putting extra emphasis on the last part "It's basically a charge."

"Is that really our best option sir?" Jaune asked, as team JNPR looked worriedly amongst themselves.

"Unfortunately it's our only option," Cryus sighed "we've no air support to speak of and only a few more days to capture and fortify our position here. The crux of it is, if we don't take this town _and hold it_ by the end of the week, then we're all dead men. Not to mention all the damage they could do to the rest of The Central Alliance from here."

One week, that was how long they had until the enemy's reinforcements arrived. After that any attack on the town would be a suicidal one.

"So what's the plan?" Jaune asked.

"We'll be charging over at midday today," Cyrus explained, as team JNPR took on determined looks to mask their fear "Atlesian Knights will go first as bullet sponges to protect us. We'll go after them and establish covering fire from our side of the bridge whilst more men move across it. Your job in all of this will be to find Glacial and neutralise him."

Jaune's eyes widened slightly, but he quickly steeled himself to the task.

" _That bastard nearly killed Pyrrha,_ " he thought darkly " _time for some payback._ "

Jaune didn't like killing, well killing humans, killing Grimm kind of came with the job, but when it came to Glacial he was willing to make an exception. Or at least he thought he was.

"Midday doesn't give us much time," Pyrrha said, as Nora gobbled up the last of her breakfast "and how are we supposed to take him out anyway?"

"That's up to you and your fearless leader," Cyrus chuckled, injecting some humour into the situation "I'll leave you to finish your breakfast."

"Great," Jaune said, turning back to his team "so all we have to do is survive and overland charge, kill a professional Warcaster and take over and hold a town."

"I'm sure you'll think of something Jaune." Pyrrha said comfortingly.

"Yeah, you always do!" Nora added.

"I have faith." Was all Ren had to say, but then he never really said much anyway.

Jaune smiled and nodded, looking back towards the town and wondering what Glacial was doing right about now.

* * *

 _Glacial Frost  
_ _11:30am,  
_ _The Town,  
_ _The Divide_

A tall man just past thirty, with a slim yet muscular figure and mid length snow white hair swept back from his face, revealing handsome features and brilliant, icy blue eyes pulled back the bolt on a massive sniper rifle and checked the firing chamber to make sure it was clean.

Satisfied with the result, Glacial Frost placed the rifle near the opening of the tower's wall, overlooking the bridge that the Central Alliance would have to cross if they wanted to make it into town.

He let out a sigh and leaned back, scooping up a can of warm fizzy drink and cooling it with his semblance. Said semblance being the ability to freeze things and summon ice from thin air.

It was a brilliant morning all things considered, the sun was warm, the sky was blue and there wasn't a single cloud to block out the light. It would have been perfect if it weren't for the bloody Central Alliance.

"Hey, I have an idea," Glacial said out loud, popping the tab on his can "let's impose our policies and ideals on the rest of the world! That'll really help us maintain our individualism! And when that doesn't work let's put together a fleet of warships and robots and station them _right outside_ the other kingdoms!"

"Can't say they didn't try sir," Magenta replied, smiling as she brought a box full of bullets and empty clips over to Glacial "and don't forget the bombings and the breach in our wall or the Grimm attack. Those were pretty bad too."

Magenta was one of Glacial's teammates, around the same age as Glacial himself with hair the colour of smoke, shot through with crimson streaks and spiky, black armour.

"Too true," Glacial agreed, as he put his can down and began loading bullets into clips "Mellow and I can do this, you head back to the plaza and make sure everything is ready."

Magenta nodded and left, disappearing quickly back the way she had come.

Meanwhile, Glacial downed the rest of his drink, popped a small stick of remotely controlled explosive plastic into the empty can, crumpled it up and tossed it out the opening and down onto the bridge below.

It landed with a clatter and rolled out toward the bridge's centre. Glacial scooped up another can and popped the tab, then shook it at Mellow.

"Hey, lover boy!" He called, causing Mellow to straighten up and focus on Glacial "How about a little help here? Don't drink too much though, I don't want you asking for toilet breaks in the middle of a firefight."

Mellow laughed nervously and picked up a can. He was a young man, a boy really, with dull blonde hair and a battle worn uniform. He was the most recent addition to Glacial's squad and, as his name suggested, he was an extremely calm young man with little to no temper and a penchant for keeping his calm.

He had a girl back home, one whose picture he wore inside a locket on his neck at all times and was always happy to help out with whatever needed doing.

Glacial briefly considered asking him about the locket as they drank, but then decided against it. He didn't feel like a depressing conversation about longing and loneliness.

"Glacial, we got movement." Came Shadow's voice, crackling out of Glacial's radio "Looks like their getting ready to charge."

Shadow was the medic on Glacial's squad and it's fourth and final member. He was standing by in one of the other buildings, acting as a spotter for the rest of the men.

"Thanks Shadow," Glacial replied, dropping another explosive can onto the bridge below "have Magenta get everyone into position, then radio me with an update."

Glacial glanced out towards the Central Alliance's trenches, then turned back to Mellow and poured his next can straight out onto the floor.

"C'mon, chop chop," he said brightly "three more then we're done."

Mellow nodded and began pouring out and filling up the next few cans.

"Shadow here," the radio crackled "we're ready to go, just waiting on the bad guys now."

"Roger that Shadow," Glacial replied, before switching off the radio and giving Mellow a thumbs up "Here we go."

The two men grabbed their rifles and lay down prone near the opening, with their guns' noses sticking out over the edge.

The bridge had been rigged to explode as a last resort, Glacial wasn't going to damage such important infrastructure if he could help it. Or unless there were a tonne of Alliance soldiers on it.

On the village's side of the bridge they had set up a massive heavy machine gun, surrounded by sandbags and manned by three men. The rest of Glacial's men were spread out in the surrounding buildings, they had used up a lot of their ammo and resources taking the town and so he wanted them to conserve what little they had left.

To that end the machine gunners had been ordered to fire short, accurate bursts at enemies attempting to cross the bridge. The machine gun was their biggest asset and they couldn't afford to waste its ammo on far off targets.

And that's where Glacial and Mellow came in. Glacial would pick off the Alliance's heavy hitters, huntsmen and paladins mainly, with his high powered rifle, whilst Mellow would go for squad leaders and vulnerable soldiers. His small caliber rounds didn't travel as fast or hit as hard as Glacial's anyway, and so any shot he fired would probably be deflected by the Alliance's huntsmen due to their aura and reflexes.

In addition to that, there were several men with rocket launchers and assault rifles ready to lay down suppressing fire on the Alliance when they advanced.

Glacial took a breath to steady himself before looking through the scope.

"Oh shit," he sighed as he saw an Atlesian Paladin clambering over the trenches "here we go."

* * *

 **Hey Reader thanks for reading this little story of mine. This story will be done in four parts, three chapters and an epilogue which will be released weekly. I hope you've enjoyed it and if you feel like doing so I would be thrilled to see you guys leave a review.**

 **See you all next week and thanks again for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Storm**

 _Jaune Arc  
_ _12:00pm,  
_ _Alliance Trenches,  
_ _The Divide_

Jaune's throat was ridiculously dry. In fact, he was pretty sure that it had never been this dry in his life. Then again, he was about to charge over several hundred metres of open ground, so maybe it was the fear that was doing it to him. If so then he was glad it had manifested as a dry throat and not wet pants.

" _Now_ that _would have been embarrassing._ " He thought to himself.

Someone down the line gave the order for something to be done. Jaune wasn't really paying attention.

"Okay, we all ready?" He asked, turning to face Pyrrha, Ren and Nora.

A chorus of half hearted agreements greeted him and he struggled to remind himself that he had to be strong for them. But he found that difficult to do as he looked around at their faces.

Nora's hands were trembling, Ren was resolute but pale and Pyrrha, well Pyrrha just looked determined. Jaune hoped he looked determined as well, and not terrified like he really was.

"Paladins charge on my mark!" Came Cyrus' voice from somewhere down the line.

Tense seconds ticked by, and Jaune was aware of every little sight and sound, magnified through the very real fear of imminent death.

"Go go go!" Cyrus commanded, and the sound of Atlesian machinery filled Jaune's ears as the huge Paladins climbed over the trenches and into no man's land.

"First wave ready?" Cyrus called out, the first wave were the robotic knights "Charge!"

The sound of machinery once again filled Jaune's ears as wave after wave of Atlesian Knights climbed out of the trench and began jogging towards the bridge, leaving enough time to draw the enemy's fire and for the human soldiers to catch up and use them as mobile cover.

"Right, we're next," Jaune said, half to himself "remember, stick together, keep an eye out for Glacial Frost and make. It. To. Cover."

 _Boom!_

Jaune flinched as the ear splitting sound rolled over the trenches and he knew without seeing it that someone he knew had just died.

" _If I lose any of them.._ " Jaune thought to himself, glancing back at his team.

Then Cyrus gave the order to charge and Jaune had no more time for thinking. He heaved himself out of the trenches, held his white shield in front of himself as he waited for his team to follow him, before peaking around the side of the shield to see the battlefield.

Hell. That's what he saw, hell. Lines of gleaming white robots, some spattered with red, marched across the open ground, firing at the town as bullets zinged off of their carapaces and punctured their internal workings.

Two Paladins were down, their chassis blown out of shape by something that must have carried a massive force, Jaune had no idea what that something was but he was pretty sure he didn't want to find out.

Then of course there were the dead and the wounded. And it actually wasn't as bad as Jaune had feared. He made out a dozen or so Alliance soldiers scattered on the ground, some of them dead some of them not.

He couldn't worry about them now though, he had a mission and a team to take care of. And with that thought he let go a battle cry and began running with his shield raised and his sword in hand.

Bullets winged past him and threw up puffs of dirt near his feet, as he ran to the knights. A few slammed into his shield, causing him to stumble. He quickly regained his balance as his heart tried to leap out of his chest and risked a quick glance over his shoulder.

Nora was right behind him, her head down and Magnihild, in its grenade launcher form, held tightly to her chest. Pyrrha and Ren were behind Jaune and to his left, mirroring his approach. Pyrrha's own shield was raised and thanks to her semblance, the bullets streaking towards her never even touched it, they simply changed course mid flight, flowing around her like water.

Jaune reached the Knights and ducked down behind them as his team caught up and did the same. He poked his head above the robot army for a brief second, surveying the battlefield and trying to figure out where Glacial would be hiding. He didn't have to wait long.

 _Boom!_

A white line, the trail of a high caliber bullet, streaked through the air and slammed into an Atlesian Paladin. The Paladin's cockpit exploded in a mess of grey machinery and a spray of bright red before the whole machine was hurled bodily backwards.

Jaune ducked back down, his stomach doing nest little flips and took a moment to steady himself.

"Cyrus?" He said into his radio, as he continued to keep pace with the slowly advancing Knights "We've found Glacial and we're about to hit him."

There was a moment of crackly static before Cyrus replied.

"Good! Put the bastard down!" Cyrus coughed, as men shouted in the background "Before we run out of Paladins!"

"Roger that sir." Jaune replied, turning to face his team "Okay, here's the deal."

His team mates all looked up at him expectantly and grasped their weapons tighter.

"Glacial is in that tower overlooking the bridge, it's the tallest one in the town so it shouldn't be hard to spot." Pyrrha, Nora and Ren all nodded to let him know they were following "Pyrrha and I are going to set up a shield wall a little way back to protect Nora while she sends a couple of grenades over towards the tower. Ren, your job is to suppress Glacial while we get into position and to stop him from-"

 _Boom!_

"Taking out anymore of our guys." Jaune finished with a sigh before asking "Ready?"

They all nodded in reply and Jaune gave the word.

Jaune and Pyrrha charged out into the open, keeping their shields between them and the town and making sure that Nora was safely behind them the whole time. Ren meanwhile leaned out from behind the Knights and began firing short, controlled bursts over towards the tower with his twin machine gun pistols, StormFlower.

"This is good!" Nora called out, and Pyrrha and Jaune planted their feet in the earth and hunkered down, making doubly sure that their shields covered as much of their bodies as they could.

Nora meanwhile, had transformed Magnihild into its warhammer form and was busy loading a red canister into it. Something which Jaune assumed was extra flammable, or 'explodey' in Nora's case.

Magnihild clicked and Nora stood, raising the hammer over her shoulder like a baseball bat. She took a couple of deep breaths, fixed her gaze on the tower in the distance and nodded.

Jaune and Pyrrha drew away from one another to give Nora a clear shot and she swung Magnihild with all the strength she could muster, sending a bright red grenade whistling away at near supersonic speeds.

Jaune smirked, Glacial didn't stand a chance.

* * *

 _Glacial Frost  
_ _12:00pm,  
_ _The Town,  
_ _The Divide,_

 _Boom!_

Glacial's ears rang as he pulled the sniper rifle's trigger and sent both another bullet speeding away _and_ another Paladin tumbling down. He swept the barrel of his rifle across the battlefield, searching for his next target, and smiled when he saw the silver-white armour of a captain glinting in the sun.

He levelled his sights on the captain's head, took a breath to steady his aim and pulled the trigger.

 _Boom!_

The rifle bucked in Glacial's hands as it sent a high caliber round screaming off across the battlefield.

The captain however, either sensed the bullet coming, was alerted by the noise of the rifle or was just extremely bloody luck, as he moved at the last second, cheating death by a few centimetres at the most.

Glacial cursed and followed the captain, chambering another round into his rifle and preparing to take another shot. The captain ducked behind a line of knights and began weaving back and forth between them, denying Glacial a clear shot.

Glacial checked his remaining ammo, saw that he still had another twelve rounds to spare and decided to take the shot. He squeezed the trigger and three gleaming, white knights exploded into thousands of pieces of twisted metal, though the captain escaped unharmed.

Glacial loaded his rifle again, cursed and looked up to check on Mellow. The young soldier was lying next to him with a grim expression and one eye squeezed shut. Every now and again he would fire off several shots in short, controlled bursts, felling enemy soldiers and keeping others suppressed.

Satisfied, Glacial turned his attention back to the captain, looking down the scope of his rifle once again and spotting the man amidst the rows of the now battle damaged and dirty Atlesian Knights.

The captain was yelling something into his radio and not one second later a hail of bullets slammed into the floors and walls around Glacial.

"Shit!" He yelled, ducking his head down as Mellow did the same.

The bullets let up for a second and Glacial and Mellow rolled away from one another, taking cover behind the walls of the tower as another hail of bullets slammed into their hiding place, shaking loose showers of splinters and riddling the tower with holes.

"Where the hell did that come from?!" Glacial asked, more to himself then anything else.

Mellow grimaced shrugged in reply. He had one hand pressed to his side, which was soaked through with blood.

"Oh shit," Glacial exclaimed "you good?"

"Flesh wound sir," Mellow grunted in reply, as Glacial tossed him a medical bag "I'll be fine."

Mellow rummaged around in the bag and pulled out a roll of sterilised bandages, whilst bullets continued to chew their way through the building around them.

"Jesus, does this guy never run out of bullets?!" Glacial complained, as Mellow finished bandaging off his midsection.

The two soldiers sat silently, patiently waiting for the storm of bullets to pass. After several minutes Glacial grew bored with waiting and decided to see who was doing all the shooting. Bullets or no bullets he wasn't going to let his men fight to the death without him.

He eased the barrel of his rifle around the corner of the building and brought the scope up to his eye, keeping as much of himself behind the wall as he could. After several seconds of sweeping the battlefield with his gaze he finally located the source of his and Mellow's suppression.

A black haired, green clad boy, who looked strangely familiar, was busy firing short, accurate bursts of gunfire at them from behind a group of advancing Atlesian Knights.

"Well hello there." Glacial muttered, noting the purple streak in the boy's hair "Kids are getting awfully colourful these days aren't they?"

He levelled his sights on the boy's chest, feeling a pang of regret but knowing that the boy was most likely more Huntsman, and therefor killer, then boy and was about to pull the trigger when something caught his eye.

Behind the sharpshooting teen were a duo of overlapping shields, one white and the other red. Glacial frowned and as he watched the shields parted, drawing away from one another to reveal another teen. One holding a giant hammer. A giant hammer which she swung and which in turn fired an explosive round straight towards Glacial's position.

"Oh shit!" Glacial yelled, scrambling to his feet as the round sped towards the tower.

Mellow saw the incoming explosion and the two men ran for the tower's stairs, hoping to escape the imminent explosion. But they were too late.

The round struck the tower and impacted with devastating force, tossing Glacial and Mellow about like rag dolls and peppering them with shards of wood and molten metal. The tip of the tower collapsed sideways, sitting at a slant as the roof burst into flames and sent debris cascading down its sides.

And when the dust from the explosion settled, the battle continued to rage.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: The End**

 _Jaune Arc  
_ _12:30pm,  
_ _The Town,  
_ _The Divide_

A cheer went up from the Alliance soldiers when Nora silenced the tower that had felled so many of their comrades and Jaune found that he couldn't help but feel a little happier knowing that Glacial Frost was gone.

That happiness however, politely moved over for fear and despair the moment he and the rest of team JNPR reached the bridge.

A long, narrow affair lined with rubbish and corpses, belonging to both the Atlesian Knights and the Alliance soldiers, the bridge was looking to be an even more challenging obstacle then the initial charge itself.

And just to make things a little harder for everyone, a nice big machine gun nest was situated at the far end of the bridge, blasting it's way through anyone who was foolhardy enough to venture out onto the bridge.

"Oh great," Jaune muttered to himself, as he spotted the heavy machine gun nest "everyone find some cover!"

He and the rest of team JNPR crouched down behind a group of Atlesian Knights who had been ordered to stand off to the side and fire at the enemy, keeping them suppressed whilst providing cover for the advancing Alliance troops.

"Ideas?" Jaune asked, half hoping his team mates had some that he didn't.

"You could use your shields." Nora offered, reverting Magnihild back to its grenade launcher form.

"Those are heavy rounds," Jaune replied, eyeing Crocea Mors "a few direct hits would shred our shields to pieces."

"Can't damage the antiques eh?" Pyrrha joked, trying to keep their spirits up "I could use my semblance to deflect the rounds as they came at us."

"No way," Jaune said, shaking his head as a few rounds pinged off of their protecters "they're too fast and they're carrying too much mass, they'd hit you before you could do anything to them."

"Well I could draw their fire then," Ren said, adding his own idea to the mix "if I Ian buy you enough time to-"

"Also no." Jaune said, shutting Ren down "I'm not losing any of you guys to this stupid war, especially not for a bridge. We need something else. Something safer."

"Well not to be a 'downer' or anything but," Nora said "I don't think you're gonna find anything safe around here."

Jaune chuckled, as did his team mates and he decided to radio Cyprus for backup.

"Jaune to Cyrus, are you receiving sir?" Jaune spoke into his radio, stabbing his sword into the ground so that he could hold both his shield and his radio.

"Jaune!" Cyrus replied, he was breathing heavily and it sounded as though he was running "Good to hear your voice, tell Nora that that was a bang up job she did with Glacial."

"Will do sir," Jaune said, glancing over to see Nora grinning "we're at the bridge but we're pinned down by a heavy machine gun. We were wondering if you had anything for it."

"A machine gun eh?" Cyrus mused to himself "I think I can work something out. You lot just stay put and I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Roger that sir." Jaune said "JNPR out."

Jaune and the rest of team JNPR settled back on their haunches and bega passing around a canteen of water, anxiously waiting for Cyrus to arrive.

"I wonder where team RWBY are right now?" Jaune asked, of no one in particular "I hope they're close to catching Cinder."

"I'm sure they're doing their best," Ren said, taking a deep swig of water and passing the canteen to Nora "they've always been exceptional in the field so I'm sure that they're fine."

Jaune nodded in reply, looked around him and began laughing, drawing alarmed looks from his team mates.

It was almost surreal the situation they were in, sitting behind a wall of robots perhaps a dozen or so metres away from armed men who wanted to kill them, and here they were drinking water and talking about their friends.

"Look at us!" Jaune laughed, gesturing around himself.

Team JNPR did as he said and one by one realised what he meant and started to laugh as well. It was a short moment of relief that was very much out of place in the war torn landscape. But it was a welcome one nonetheless.

By the time Cyrus arrived team JNPR were out of water and were ready to get back into the fight. They looked up at him as he came over to join them and this time Jaune didn't bother with a salute.

"JNPR," Cyrus greeted them, his armour was dirty and the front of his white lapel was spattered with red "'ready for the final push?"

"Ready and waiting!" Jaune began, with Nora finishing the sentence for him.

"Good, then here we go!" Cyrus replied, flexing his fingers.

Blue lighting curled around his fingers and the Alliance captain leaned out from behind his cover and sent three arcs of lightning streaking towards the machine gun nest. The lightning struck the heavy, mounted gun and burned through it in several places, rendering it useless and causing its operators to scatter in fear.

"Go go go!" Cyrus yelled, visibly strained from using his semblance to such a degree.

Jaune nodded and led his team forwards, charging out onto the bridge with his shield raised and slowing to let Pyrrha take the lead. With her semblance she would have the best chance of diverting any shots fired at her or her team mates now that the machine gun nest was gone.

The bridge itself was another hellish feature in a war torn landscape. Littered with bodies and smoking debris, with fire raining down from the burning tower above it, the bridge was an intimidating sight and Jaune couldn't help wonder about its integrity.

 _Boom!_

Ear splitting, terrifying and very close, Jaune stared, horrified as a round the size of his hand slammed into Pyrrha's head, slamming her to the ground and sending her weapons spinning out of her hands and off the bridge into the ravine below.

"PYRRHA!" Jaune screamed, sprinting over to his fallen comrade with his shield held high.

 _Boom!_

This time the shot was aimed at Jaune and he stumbled as the bullet tore through his shield, missing him by a few centimetres.

Jaune reached Pyrrha and dropped to his knees, keeping the shield between himself and the tower and casting his sword aside so that he could examine his team mate.

"Pyrrha, Pyrrha!" He yelled, shaking her shader and checking her head for injuries "Come on Pyrrha, don't do this! Don't die! You're not the one who dies for this team you hear me!"

Ren and Nora sprinted past Jaune and began firing at the tower, trying to give their leader and their injured some time to recover.

 _Boom!_

Another round from what Jaune assumed to be Glacial's rifle struck Nora in the side, spinning her on the spot and flinging her now limp and bloody body towards the edge of the bridge.

Ren screamed in anguish and launched himself towards Nora, catching her arm before she could fall into the ravine below. Jaune meanwhile had calmed down after seeing Pyrrha breathe, though he wasn't sure how she was still alive after suffering a direct hit from Glacial's rifle.

Unbeknownst to Jaune the bullet that had struck her had actually been slowed by her semblance before tearing through her shield and striking her headpiece, saving her from death but rendering her painfully unconscious.

"Jaune!" Ren cried out, swearing as Glacial took a shot at him and missed by a few centimetres at the most "I can't hold on! _She's_ slipping!"

Jaune looked over at Ren, whom was on his belly behind a destroyed Atlesian Knight, hanging onto Nora's hand as she swayed, unconscious or dead off the side of the bridge. Her side was bleeding heavily and any attempt to haul her back up to safety would result in Ren rising above cover and exposing himself to Glacial's lethal sight.

"Okay we're coming! Just stay there!" Jaune replied, scooping his sword into the crook of his arm and grabbing Pyrrha under her shoulder.

 _Boom!_

He dragged his team mate across the garbage and carnage filled bridge, stumbling at one point as another round tore through his shield and missed both him and Pyrrha.

He reached Ren and kept his shield, which now had more holes then metal in it, between himself and the tower. He let go of Pyrrha, making sure she was behind cover and reached a hand down to help Ren haul Nora up to safety.

 _Beep beep!_

Jaune's blood went cold as the sudden sound emanated out of one of the rubbish piles that littered the bridge's surface. Another mound of rubbish began beeping shortly after the first and soon the entire bridge was beeping.

Jaune sprung into action, grabbing anything near him that beeped and hurling off the bridge. He knew what beeping meant, everyone in war knew what beeping meant. It either meant that there was a message in morse code or much more likely, that there was a bomb about to go off.

He got through maybe ten or so of the potential bombs before the world exploded in a mess of colour and sound, slamming him flat on his back and threatening him with tinnitus.

Jaune shook his head as his ears rung from the explosion. Someone was yelling something at him and he was dimly aware of the fact that he had been doing something important before it had all gone to hell.

He sluggishly raised his eyes to see someone launch themselves from the tower and land with an intimidating _thud_ at the end of the bridge. Someone with blazing blue eyes and a soot covered face. Glacial Frost.

Everything sharpened into clarity in an instance and bottom Jaune's stomach dropped as he remembered that Nora was hanging over a hundred metre drop, suspended only by Ren's determined grip.

He cast a glance over to where he had been and sure enough Ren was still there, his teeth gritted and his expression strained.

A hand slammed down on Jaune's shoulder and he spun only to find himself facing Cyrus Lapel.

"Get out of here Jaune!" The captain yelled, shaking Jaune's shoulder "This bridge is gonna collapse any minute now!"

"Not without Nora!" Jaune replied, as Glacial charged them.

"Dammit boy!" Cyrus exclaimed, still holding Jaune's shoulder "You can't save everyone! You and Ren need to leave! Now!"

"The hell I can't!" Jaune snarled, jerking away from his captain and sprinting back over to Ren.

Cyrus yelled, exasperated, and ran to meet Glacial's charge head on. The two huntsmen collided and began trading blows, blocking and parrying one another as they danced across the bridge, throwing strikes with blinding speed and a skill that far surpassed Jaune's own.

Jaune dropped to his knees, ignoring a pain filled yell that came from Cyrus and began helping Ren. Together the two boys hauled the once energetic girl to safety and turned, panting, in time to see Glacial stab a blade of ice through Cyrus' chest.

"Captain!" Ren yelled, as Jaune stared on in horror.

"Oh dammit!" Cyrus grunted, blood dribbling from his mouth.

The captain gurgled something at Glacial and grasped the man's collar with one hand. He then thrust his other hand out and sent a massive bolt of lightning streaking towards the base of the crippled tower.

The tower's lower region exploded and the entire structure began tilting forwards, falling slowly, yet with increasing speed, towards the bridge.

Jaune's eyes widened and he looked back across the bridge, towards the Alliance trenches, and realised that they wouldn't make it in time. The tower would land and crush them before they could reach safety. Which left him with only one course of action.

"Ren!" He said, turning to face his one unharmed team mate.

Ren looked at Jaune and his eyes widened as he realised what his leader had in mind. He blinked and his expression went from surprised to determined in a heartbeat.

The two boys turned without a word and picked up their fallen comrades; Pyrrha and Nora, cradling the two girls in their arms. Then they nodded once at each other and jumped off of the bridge, just as the tower, in all it's flaming glory, came crashing down.

* * *

 _Glacial Frost,  
_ _12:30pm,  
_ _The Tower,  
_ _The Divide,_

Smoke filled Glacial's ears, the world was slanted at an odd angle and a high pitched ringing drowned out any noise he might have been able to hear. The room was on fire, hence the smoke and Mellow was buried beneath a layer of glowing hot embers and splintered, wooden beams.

Glacial drawled haphazardly over to Mellow and dragged him out of the wreckage, realising that the poor boy was dead when he saw that half of his face was missing.

"Goddammit!" Glacial muttered, looking around for his rifle.

He found the gun, intact thanks to the barrier of ice which Glacial had summoned to protect himself from the blast, buried under a flaming log that had fallen from the ceiling.

Glacial retrieved the rifle, loaded a round into its chamber and stumbled over to a hole in the wall, one which still overlooked the bridge. He wedged himself into a spot near the opening and looked out over the bridge.

The bridge was in dire threat of being overrun, the machine gun nest on the town's side was a smoking heap of shrapnel and the same squad of huntsmen whom had killed Mellow were now making their way across the bridge towards the town.

Glacial spat out a wad of soot filled phlegm and raised the scope of the rifle, centring his sights on the lead figure, a young red headed woman with a large, round shield.

Glacial led his target with his sight in order to account for her movement and then pulled the trigger.

 _Boom!_

The rifle bucked and the building shuddered as the round flew straight and true, slamming into the huntress' head and knocking her, with violent force, to the ground. Glacial reloaded with a cold, calm efficiency and raised the scope once again.

A white clad huntsman was sprinting over to the red haired girl, his shield was raised and he looked desperate to reach her.

"Mellow was desperate too." Glacial spat, pulling the trigger as he felt anger bubble up inside him.

 _Boom!_

The white huntsman stumbled but kept going as Glacial's hasty shot tore through his shield but failed to hit him. Glacial swore and reloaded with jerky motions.

"Never fire angry!" He berated himself, before snarling "No fuck that I'm pissed."

He took aim again and this time found himself staring down at the young woman who had taken out the tower and killed Mellow. He pulled the trigger without thinking.

 _Boom!_

The girl's side exploded in a mess of red and sent her spinning towards the edge of the bridge. The green clad huntsman launched himself after her and Glacial took a shot at him, missing in his haste and blowing a chunk out of the bridge instead.

The huntsman landed behind a damage Atlesian Knight and Glacial couldn't tell if he had caught his falling team mate or not. Meanwhile, the white huntsman was advancing forwards with his shield raised, dragging the red huntress behind him.

 _Boom!_

Glacial swore as he missed again, tearing another hole through the shield but failing to hit the boy again.

"Oh screw this!" Glacial snarled, throwing the rifle down and heading back into the now highly unstable tower.

He ducked his head down low to avoid the smoke and began searching for the detonator for the bridge's explosives. He must have dropped it during the initial explosion because he couldn't find it on his person. After several minutes though he found it trapped under a pile of smouldering embers.

He grabbed it, ignoring the painful burns he received from the embers and hit the 'detonate' button.

Glacial headed back to the opening to watch the results and was enraged to see the white huntsman desperately hurling his IED's over the side of the bridge. The explosives finally detonated, shaking the tower's foundations and causing large portions of the bridge to crack and fall away.

The squad of huntsmen however, had survived, as had most of the bridge, thanks to the white huntsman's actions.

"Arrgh!" Glacial yelled, his frustration getting the better of him.

He hurled himself out of the tower, landing with one knee down on the bridge below as embers rained down all around him.

He stood amidst the flaming rain and fixed his gaze on the white huntsman, who was standing in the open arguing with his captain, who had apparently caught up with them.

Glacial didn't bother announcing himself, he just ran straight at the two men, fixing his attention on the captain and disregarding the white huntsman who ran off to the side somewhere. He didn't matter, the white huntsman and his squad were beginners, and once Glacial had dealt with the captain he could worry about them.

Glacial reached the captain and clenched his hands into fists, summoning daggers of blistering, cold ice into existence. He stabbed one dagger towards the captain's chest and swept the other one low, intending to disembowel him.

The captain dodged backwards, avoiding the low ship and pushed Glacial's stabbing hand to the side, spinning him on the spot and stepping in to attack Glacial's exposed back.

Glacial however, continued to spin and came full circle, drawing an outstretched arm and it's subsequent dagger across the captain's face. The captain. Yelled in pain and dived sideways to avoid Glacial's follow up attack; a series of high speed thrusts and slashes.

The captain rolled to his feet and threw a fistful of lightning at Glacial, whom raised his daggers in an X block to protect himself. The daggers shattered into a million tiny pieces, which Glacial reformed into spikes before sending the streaking towards the captain.

The captain ducked and dodged, weaving his way through the storm lethal icicles in his attempt to close the gap between himself and Glacial. He threw a lightning wreathed punch towards Glacial and gasped in disbelief as the punch connected and the huntsman's form shattered into millions of shards of ice.

Glacial Frost came sailing through the storm of shimmering ice and slammed a knee into the stunned captain's chin, staggering him and forcing him backwards. Glacial then called another ice dagger into existence and plunged it into the stunned captain's chest.

Someone nearby screamed but Glacial didn't get a chance to see who it was because the captain snapped out one of his hands and grasped Glacial by the collar. Glacial tried to shake free but the captain's grip was like iron.

"Oh no you don't you bastard!" The captain gurgled, blood bubbling out of his mouth and spilling down his chin "If I'm going down, then so are you!"

He thrust his other hand out and Glacial's hair stood on end as a massive bolt of lightning streaked towards the base of the tower, shattering it and causing the entire building to list heavily towards the bridge.

"Oh come on!" Glacial yelled, picking up the captain as the tower fell towards the bridge.

He ran towards the tower's base, where the force of the falling building and the amount of debris would be least, carrying the captain bodily with him despite his attempts to keep Glacial rooted to the spot. He reached the end of the bridge as the tower's shadow grew larger and more menacing.

Something bounced off of Glacial's head and he dropped to his knees, throwing his arms up and summoning a cocoon of ice around himself in the hopes that it might save him.

The tower came crashing down not a second later and after a few seconds of chaos, everything went black.


	4. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 _Glacial Frost  
_ _1:30pm,  
_ _The Town,  
_ _The Divide_

"Sleep well Mellow," Magenta whispered, placing her hand on Mellow's white cloth covered face and picking up his locket "I'll make sure she knows."

Magenta looked up, her eyes dark and weary and made her way over to Glacial who was busy being tended to by Shadow, a man with pitch black hair and eyes and a degree in medicine.

Shadow was busy patching up Glacial's numerous cuts or smearing something across one of the many burns he had received when the tower had come down on top of him.

Shadow and Magenta had been the ones to turn the tide after Glacial and Mellow had been taken out of commission, rallying the troops and shoring up the defence. Though, with the bridge gone the battle had been virtually over, with no way for the Central Alliance to cross into and take the town.

They had also been the ones to find Glacial buried under half a building and several layers of jagged ice, dangerously close to the now defunct bridge. After digging him out they had brought him back to the town square which had been their headquarters since they had first taken the town.

The square itself was bordered on three sides by buildings, with the fourth side leading to a large road which in turn lead through the town and back down to the now destroyed bridge.

"Command radioed me before," Glacial said, his gaze fixed upon Mellow's covered corpse "we aren't going to be getting any reinforcements. Apparently the Central Alliance's defence was stronger then we thought. No one got through and now I can't even raise command in the bloody radio."

"So this is officially a siege then?" Magenta asked, taking a seat next to Glacial.

"We'll be famous," Shadow joked halfheartedly, methodically continuing to tend to Glacial's wounds "the outnumbered defenders who heroically fended off the enemy."

"Unfortunately they tend to be famous for holding out for a long time _before_ they die." Glacial replied, wincing as Shadow pulled a splinter as long as his finger out of his arm "I was kind of hoping to live through this."

Shadow sighed and finished patching up Glacial, leaning back to admire his handiwork before moving onto the other wounded soldiers that littered the courtyard.

"Search teams radioed in boss." Magenta said, passing a radio to Glacial "Looks like those huntsman went down with the bridge because no one saw them retreating with the rest of the Alliance's forces."

"Rough way to go." Glacial grunted, looking away from Mellow's corpse and getting to his feet "I'm going to radio in to command, you go check the perimeter, I don't want to get caught off guard by some kind of idiotically heroic sneak attack."

Magenta smiled and nodded, gathering together a group of sun injured soldiers before leaving the courtyard.

"Glacial Frost to command," Glacial said into his radio "come in command. Glacial Frost to Command. Come on pick up!"

He was greeted by static which he could only surmise to mean that his communications were being blocked and that the Central Alliance's defence had indeed been stronger then expected.

"Great." He sighed, throwing the radio away I disgust.

He sat down on the steps again, glanced over towards Mellow and began wondering how in the hell he was going to get he and his men through this bloody war.

* * *

 _Jaune Arc,  
_ _1:30pm,  
_ _The Divide,  
_ _The Ravine_

"Owwwwww!" Jaune groaned, rolling on to his stomach and receiving a gut full of jagged rocks.

He pushed himself to his feet, groaning the whole way and wiped dried blood off of his brow. He swayed on his feet, suddenly dizzy and fell back to the ground before struggling into a sitting position.

He looked around and was surprised to find himself in a rocky ravine, one filled with boulders and wooden and concrete debris. He could see Ren stirring on ground a few metres away from him, going through all the same things he had just gone through.

Jaune hauled himself unsteadily to his feet, and spotted Pyrrha lying on her side behind him. Pyrrha. It all came rushing back to him; the battle, the bridge, Glacial Frost. Everything.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune yelled, scrambling over to her prone form and rolling her onto her side "Come on Pyrrha, wake up!"

"Jaune...?" Pyrrha mumbled, her eyes fluttering open before she slipped back,into unconsciousness.

"Oh thank god!" Jaune exclaimed, hugging Pyrrha to him.

Then he remembered Nora.

"Oh crap!" He said, laying Pyrrha down gently.

He pushed himself to his feet and ran over to Ren, holding out a steadying hand to stop him from falling over. Both of them were weak from the fall, they had channeled all of their aura into a protective barrier to protect themselves and were now running on empty.

"Nora?" Ren asked, his eyes worried and his face caked in blood "Can you see her?!"

The two boys looked around, searching all over the ravine before finally finding the orange haired girl down the side of one of the boulders. She was white as a ghost when they finally got her out onto a flat section of ground.

Jaune examined her side and was horrified to find it soaked in blood, yet exhilarated to find that it was only a flesh wound, and that the bullet had passed cleanly through her without damaging any of her organs. Though she was sure to have one hell of an infection after being exposed for so long.

Jaune got out the medkit that he carried with him and began packing and wrapping Nora's wound. Ren meanwhile, retrieved the small supply of antibiotics that the medkit contained and began administering them, bit by bit to Nora.

"You're going to be alright," Ren muttered, as he ran out of antibiotics to give "you're going to be okay, you-"

"Ren," Jaune said, tying off Nora's bandages and placing a comforting hand on Ren's shoulder "we've got her. She's safe and we're going to keep it that way."

Ren nodded and some of his usual quiet confidence returned to his face.

"The captain-" Ren began, suddenly remembering Cyrus and the last time that they had seen him.

"Don't think about it," Jaune warned, trying and failing to take his own advice "it won't do us any good. Come on, we need to get out of here."

Ren nodded and gently picked Nora up, whilst Jaune did the same with Pyrrha.

"We'll follow this ravine out to the sea," Jaune explained, setting off across the uneven landscape "that should get us far enough away from Glacial's forces that we can radio for help without drawing them down on us as well."

Ren nodded again, focusing all his attention on where he was placing his feet so that he wouldn't drop Nora.

Jaune meanwhile was trying to spot his or his teammates weapons somewhere amongst the boulders and the debris, as he had a sinking feeling that they would be needing them again some time soon.

He threw a glance skyward, wondering where team RWBY were and hoping that wherever they were, they were close to ending this stupid war.


End file.
